Prices in supermarkets can vary quite widely depending on the territory. In this little game, Brittany wins the prize for the cheapest region for shopping. This is what emerges from a study carried out by the retail specialist Olivier Dauvers with the company A3 Distrib, published this week.
The four departments of the region (Côtes-d’Armor, Finistère, Ille-et-Vilaine and Morbihan) are all in the 20% of the least expensive territories in France. The Côtes-d’Armor even reaps the gold medal for the most competitive department in France, with an average price index in hypermarkets, supermarkets and convenience stores (offering the withdrawal of shopping by drive or click
More broadly, it is in the Great West that we find the most low-cost departments. The Vendée being second in the classification, the Deux-Sèvres fourth or the Mayenne fifth. Unsurprisingly, at the other end of the list, Paris is, by far, the department where the races are the most expensive, with an index of 117.5. Shopping in the capital therefore costs about 17% more than the national average – and therefore about 22% more expensive than in Côtes-d’Armor. The other Ile-de-France departments are also among the most strained territories for the wallet: Hauts-de-Seine is the second most expensive in France, followed by Val-de-Marne, Seine-Saint-Denis and Yvelines.
Outside Île-de-France, the Mediterranean coast is the other region where shopping is the most expensive. In particular in the Alpes-Maritimes, the Bouches-du-Rhône, the Aude or the Pyrénées-Orientales. “The Great West remains the most competitive area and the Mediterranean coast (and the highly urbanized departments) still in the red”, summarizes Olivier Dauvers on his blog. Among the reasons behind this observation, the journalist cites the higher operating costs of stores “where land is expensive”: rents for commercial space are higher in Paris or Nice than in Saint-Brieuc.
In addition, there is a competition effect in the West, where “the three independent brands (Leclerc, Intermarché and the U) are fighting each other”, explains Olivier Dauvers. Finally, he mentions “local opportunism”, i.e. the effect of differences in purchasing power between regions. “If the Casino supermarket in Roquebrune is so expensive, it’s because customers there are less price-sensitive than those at Colruyt in Horbourg in Alsace,” he explains.
Last March, a study by panelist NielsenIQ, relayed by Franceinfo, arrived more or less at the same results. Based on a basket of 37 references, the firm had calculated that the Vendée was the department where it cost the least (100.20 euros), the western territories monopolizing the first places. In this study, Paris also came first among the most expensive departments (125.56 euros), along with the other Ile-de-France territories and the departments of the Mediterranean arc.
